


Ladylike Little Stitches

by scribblesandscreeds



Category: Gypsy - Laurents/Sondheim
Genre: Drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4244277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblesandscreeds/pseuds/scribblesandscreeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She made all their costumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ladylike Little Stitches

By the age of six she had callouses on her fingertips. It started with a sampler – Bless This House – but soon she was sewing ribbons onto the tiniest little toe shoes in the world, pinching in the backs so they would fit the baby's tiny little feet without falling off when she danced, and darning the toes over and over so that they would last until the next size up was needed. Momma had taught her how to thread a needle and tie it off, but she didn't have the patience to sit for hours at a time pushing the needle in and out of cloth. Grampa had shown her how to darn socks, puzzling over some of her grandmother's handiwork until she could replicate it exactly. She'd put the matching collars onto their Dutch costumes, and sewn the tulips onto the baby's apron.  
She herself was a boy in the act, and so had worked out the pattern for pants. She had to be a boy because it made her look younger and anyhow, the baby was the one with the talent. So only the baby got to be a girl.

When they got boys in the act, their costumes didn't need to look neat – indeed, they needed not to – but they still needed to be wearable. One by one they shot up and their pantslegs flapped around their ankles, then shins. She let down turnups, then hems. One of the boys, who had a real talent for dancing, was always splitting open the seat of his or tearing holes in the knees. It got so they were almost as much patches and darning as they were original fabric. She didn't mind, it showed how much he practiced. She liked to watch him.  
Even with real boys in the act, she still had to pretend to be one so that everyone would look at the baby. She was the star.

Momma dreamed up a new act when she finally had to admit that her baby wasn't really a baby any more. New costumes were called for to keep her looking dainty – high waistlines, frilly necklines, skirts big and full to give her a childlike silhouette. The boys got shabbier, covered in big fake patches which made it easier to hide the real ones. They had flimsy quickchange tuxedos too, which they weren't allowed to wear except on stage. One tux had a pair of pants with a preemptively reinforced seat, because she knew that their owner would eventually do something ambitious and hopefully spectacular, and they wouldn't keep up with him.  
She didn't have to pretend to be a boy any more. Now she was the front end of a cow.

She sometimes wondered if the landlord of the hotel in Ohio would have recognised his stolen blankets if he'd seen her or Momma in their new coats. He probably wouldn't have realised that the baby was wearing his property, unless he connected it to the pink bathtub they'd left behind them. If he hadn't wanted it to get stained, Momma said, he shouldn't have had a porcelain tub in the first place. She'd made them all different – the baby got one that flared from the shoulders to protect the fullest of her skirts from the elements, Momma's was three-quarter length and loosely fitted, and her own was just a jacket, but double-breasted.  
They were wonderfully warm, but not very waterproof. The makers of the blankets had neglected to consider the effects of rain. 

The pink finale dress was made of cheap stuff, already reduced because of a flaw in the cloth and then hammered down in price by Momma until the man had practically paid them to take it off his hands. The quality of the cloth didn't matter though, because every inch of it was covered in rhinestones and sequins. It was supposed to just be rhinestones, but they were expensive so it was mostly rhinestones on the front and all sequins on the back, with a speckling of stones on top to maintain the illusion. She had had to stitch each one by hand, but she didn't mind. It gave her something to do when they were on the road. The baby got travelsick if she tried to sew or read in a car, so she would enchant the driver with precocious babble until they forgot to ask for gas money, while her plain older sister sat in the back and stitched.  
One time someone tried to be helpful, and washed the dress for her. All the sequins had dissolved into a gelatinous mess. They had been to another four theatres before she managed to replace them all. 

It had been a beautiful dress. She had made it with all her love, all her skill. It was only supposed to be a stage costume, but it had probably been her finest work. On her, it had reached mid-shin. A little more risque than her usual slacks and sweaters. It had had hand-sewn rhinestone motifs, to match his lapels. How they had sparkled! How he had shone! She had cut the heavy white Duchess satin on the bias, so the steps of the dance made it flow, marabou trimming floating in the air. When she tried it on, it had hugged curves she was barely aware of owning. Even stood still on the dress form, it seemed to move.  
Her sister must have looked exquisite in it when she married the boy she'd been in love with, the boy who could dance.

It had felt wrong to cut into Old Glory, on purpose, to make stage costumes. At least it got reassembled every time they performed, if the girls had picked up the right pieces and the stars didn't end up in the wrong corner. They were using it patriotically in the act, like they always had, but still. She wasn't convinced that it was respectful to cut the stars and stripes into fourths and tie it – backwards – around their waists.  
The flag had come from a courthouse in Louisiana, where it was being taken down for repair. The workers – who had stopped to catcall Momma – had left it sitting in a neatly folded pile behind them. She had casually walked by and stuffed it under her coat while they were distracted. She kind of hoped they didn't get into any more trouble for losing it. They had already been punished once, Momma gave as good as she got, and then some.  
She was playing a boy again, this time so that people would look at her and not the other girls. She was the star. 

The dress she made for the former ballerina became her debutante gown. She had been trying to finish it as they packed, on their last day in the burlesque theatre. At least with the act dead and buried, they weren't rushing to get to another town.  
It was silk and chiffon, pale pink with rosebuds. Roulade straps held up a gown with a loose cowl neck and low back. It was slim on the waist and hips, then flared out like the bell of a trumpet thanks to godets of fully bloomed red roses. It wasn't supposed to be a stage costume, but like Momma said, it worked perfect for that performance. When she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror in the wings, she had barely believed that it was her. She was pretty. She was a pretty girl. She had to be pinned into the dress, as she hadn't sewn on the hooks and eyes yet. Some of the leftover scraps from the skirt were pinned to her hips, the pin only stuck through the separate piece once but in and out of the gown underneath so it wouldn't just fall off, but she could still unpin them with one smooth motion of the finger and thumb of one hand. She forgot all about them, and her fear that she would pull on the wrong pin and undo the whole dress, when she got onto the stage. All the audience got from her that first night was a pair of gloves and a dropped shoulder strap – they loved her nontheless.  
The ballerina – bless her golden heart – made a gift of the gown, and refused to take back the thirty dollars she had paid for it.

She had girls backing her up in her act once more but she was, by no stretch of the imagination, playing a boy. She proved that every night. No-one would accuse her of leading a troupe of professional virgins these days – that was a distinct disadvantage in the audition process for her showgirls.  
They hired professional costumiers now, who had been making showgirls' g-strings and feather headdresses for years, but she still designed and made her own stage outfits. She would have made them all, even now, but she recognised that there were certain conventions and techniques that were outside her realm of expertise. Anyway, she didn't have time – what with the press engagements, photoshoots, advertising contracts, gala performances, movie spots, parties, writing her books, and personal appearances, her schedule was now very full indeed.  
And she loved it. She loved every second of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried to use accurate vocabulary in this.  
> Victorian sequins were made of gelatin.


End file.
